A great thing about competitive stock show kids is their constant drive for excellence. After all, that is what makes them competitive. The flip side of that is that kids with a competitive mindset can often be really hard on themselves when the show doesn’t go as planned.
What Went Wrong?
This year at our state fair, I had the opportunity to visit with a really good showman and her mom after the showmanship class. The young lady placed much lower than she hoped for and was being pretty hard on herself. She’d been working hard at home and her showmanship partner decided that day that it was simply not a good day to show. They will do that and the reality is that all you can do is your best to get through it.
Team Sport
Have you ever considered that showmanship is a team sport? You may not have recognized it to be either a team event or a sport. Make no mistake, it’s both. Your teammate is your animal. They will have good days and bad.
The key is to consistently have more good days than bad. If you show heifers, they can be more inconsistent in their dispositions than steers. Heifers can come into heat at the show and completely mess up your mojo.
You don’t think showing cattle is a sport? Listen, if they are going to call golf a sport then showing cattle is for darned sure a sport.
As a showman, you practice technique and develop strategies for success. You work with your partner so they understand all of your ques and respond accordingly. That makes showing cattle a sport in my book.
Competitive Mindset
Sports psychologists make great incomes coaching athletes from high school to professional sports to get their minds in the right space to have their bodies perform as is required to do their job. They focus on a competitive mindset.
If you start beating yourself up because you didn’t perform as well as you’d planned, it’s simply not productive. Worse, you may beat yourself up because your steer or heifer decided not to lead on a particular day. I’m not a sports psychologist, but I have enough life and show ring experience to know two things.
- A healthy dose of disappointment can fuel some people to do better the next time.
- Focusing on beating yourself up blocks your ability to learn from the experience.
What Can Be Learned from the Outcome?
In the case of the young lady we were discussing earlier, let’s explore the fact that her heifer didn’t lead. Was she too tired? Was this abnormal for that heifer? Had she been in the show ring before and knew where the out-gate was…therefore not wanting to walk any further?
Take a few moments of reflection to determine what went well and what didn’t. It’s more productive than the alternative.
Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Make Sense
Showmanship is just as subjective as placing the cattle. It’s funny to me because people often differentiate between the two as if the showmanship is the only event at a show that is subjective. As if the line up of the cattle is not subjective.
If it were not, then everyone would agree with the job a particular judge does in evaluating a show. I have never been to a show where everyone I talk to is happy with the outcome. It doesn’t happen. We all have opinions and priorities.
So, sometimes the outcome simply won’t make sense to you. You just have to accept that. More importantly, you should evaluate it to see if there is anything you can do to prevent it in the future.
Do What You Can to Control The Outcome
This year at our county fair, Will got beat in showmanship because he didn’t know the answers to all of the questions. The judge placed far more emphasis on the answers to the questions than on the ability to show cattle.
Guess what? The judge was being paid that day to evaluate. Nobody else’s opinion mattered. Any competitive kid would be frustrated and Will was no different. I told him there is a very simple solution to this problem.
Go get the beef quiz bowl questions and memorize the answers. Don’t allow yourself to be put in the situation where you can get beat for something as simple as quiz bowl questions.
Keep Your Head Right and Your Chin Up
Back to our young lady at State Fair. I told her that she is a good showman because she is. She has a good style and a good mentor, maybe several mentors. It just happened that it was not her day.
Should you be disappointed when you work hard and things don’t go as planned? Absolutely! Take that disappointment and turn it into something that can work for you. Turn it into something productive. Let that competitive mindset work for you.
You can’t control the outcome of the show but you can certainly control your response to it.
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